Yasuo

By Refpsi

12/7/2013 11:06:11 PM

1

This guide is designed by Refpsi to play Yasuo as a Melee Hard Carry in the Jungle. Yasuo is very capable of dealing damage with a good mix of crowd control. He can be very mobile despite not having a movement speed steroid. He also has a passive that doubles his critical strike making him very deadly.

Related Guides:

Item Build

Starting Items

Hunter's Machete

Health Potion

x4

Sweeping Lens (Trinket)

As Yasuo you want to be able to clear your jungle. Hunter's Machete is the best go to item to do this. On top of that the ability to carry 5 health pots for sustain is very helpful. It is pretty self explanatory, most junglers will start machete and clear. This item also sets you up to get your spirit stone early. The red trinket is great for sweeping wards off the map. Communicate with your team mates to help you decide where you activate your sweeping trinket to clear a ward. The 5 health pots should be periodically consumed while jungling to ensure you are healthy enough for at least one gank after you clear the jungle and have both your buffs.

Core Items

Boots of Speed

Spirit of the Elder Lizard

Statikk Shiv

Your core Items should be Spirit of the elder lizard, and Statikk Shiv. Elder lizard not only brings damage but the passive effect helps you sustain within the jungle even on low to no life steal builds. On top of that it amplifies you clearing speed and rewards you for ganking with passive gold that builds up when not jungling. It provides a good source of a decent amount of damage as well as cdr to help you get your steel tempest knock up off. It is a very reliable jungle item on Yasuo and the sustain it offers is incredible.

Statikk Shiv should be your secondary core Item as it offers great synergy with your passive shield and dashing. By being mobile in fights and chasing as well as moving to help your proc your shield you are benefiting twice over. On top of that the critical strike is doubled. The attack speed it grants actually also lowers the cooldown on steel tempest making it much more spammable thus procing the knock up much more often.

By combining these two items you are able to clear your jungle reliably and gank/duel accordingly. The movement speed granted by statikk shiv helps you chase and gank enemies as well. You can opt to upgrade boots after or move onto heavier and stronger endgame items.

Endgame Items

Mercury's Treads

Spirit of the Elder Lizard

Statikk Shiv

Infinity Edge

The Bloodthirster

Trinity Force

The end game build on Yasuo should do a few things. A solid end game Yasuo build should make full use of his doubled critical strike to reach the 100% cap. It should supply significant damage as well as life steal. As Yasuo you also want to be benefited for using any of your abilities. With those guide lines in mind I will explain what each item does for you.

Spirit of the Elder Lizard - This item is your jungle clear and sustain as well as early damage. It grants CDR. This item is later sold for an alternative or stronger item. See the next section for details

Statikk Shiv - SS works with your Passive and kit to deal awesome damage. It rewards you for being mobile and moving around to help proc your shield. It also offers good wave clear on top of your already good kit for wave clearing. By being a large source of critical strike it helps boost your mid game

Infinity Edge - IE utilizes the full potential of critical striking. It is a huge damage spike for Yasuo. On top of that it gives a huge 50% critical strike chance on Yasuo. This item should be a mandatory item on him into the late game. It benefits him greatly

Blood Thirster - BT is great on Yasuo as he needs a good source of lifesteal. On top of that he has pretty incredible damage scaling on both his steel tempest and his Ultimate.

Trinity force - Benefits him for using his abilities on top of that it also boost him to reach his max critical strike. The mobility it adds also helps stack his shield much quicker. It is a great final item but it can feel really underwhelming when you build it early.

Alternative Items

Youmuu's Ghostblade

Maw of Malmortius

Blade of the Ruined King

Ravenous Hydra (Melee Only)

The Black Cleaver

Mercurial Scimitar

With the note that all Tanky items appear to be relatively useful on Yasuo I will discuss my choice of 6 Items to replace the spirit of the elder lizard.

Ghost Blade - This is a good early snowball item. Late game it can fall off and feel underwhelming as he doesn't benefit from sheer chasing as much as others do.

Maw of Malmortious - This is a great magic resist defense item that also grants a shield that can save your life. It can lead to some pretty epic baits when fighting magic damage dealers on top of your focus shield

Blade of the ruined king - Good item vs health stackers, It can help you chase and stick to enemies as well.

Hydra - Amazing for bursting teams. If you are in a good AoE composition and can get deep within the enemies with your steel tempest knock up and ultimate you can demolish teams

Black Cleaver- Probably my preferred replacement as it grants CDR and penetration into the late game. It is universal penetration for your team making you a even more effective addition to your team

Mercurial Scimitar - Great vs CC and suppressions. Not much else to say about it, grants good damage.

Comments

I'm curious as to why you go for Bloodthirster instead of Ravenous Hydra since Hydra can be used to proc an extra auto attack as well as do splash damage in team fights and to minions/monsters. It also procs on Yasuo's Q's since his Q counts as a basic attack. A well timed engage can knock the enemy team down to 30-50% health and even clean up. I lost count of how many quadras and pentas I've gotten playing Yasuo, and he only just came out!

While I don't necessarily disagree with your runes, I find mine to yield a much higher output and sustain in fights and while jungling. -10% CDR at level 18 glyphs, 6.9% AS Seals, +22 AD at level 18 Marks, and +6% Lifesteal Quintessences. At level 18 I can use my ultimate every 28 seconds. The reason I use Lifesteal Quintessences is because my Q counts as an auto attack, allowing me to heal off of it as I would an auto attack. With a Ravenous Hydra, that's 18% life steal! http://puu.sh/6sNIL/2b8fde5025.jpg

Here's a screenie of my Masteries as well. Don't forget that Yasuo's Q and E count as spells and works with Expose Weakness.

Also, I don't know why people don't play Yasuosupport except for me. I win 9 out of 10 of my games with it.

I usually don't get Guardian Angel, but their heavy burst warranted it. I always start with an early Statikk Shiv after Berserker's Greaves and Targon's Brace for that early farm and poke advantage. If I'm feeling really ballsy with my pokes or they have a lot of life steal or health pots, I grab Executioner's Calling after buying Statikk Shiv since it gives +25 AD, +20% Critical Strike (40% because of Yasuo's passive) and inflicts Grevious Wounds for 1.5 seconds on basic attack or Q. Infinity Edge is very nice as it increases your critical strike damage, effectively negating the downside to his passive. A late game Trinity Force is amazing since it applies on your Q's and increases your movement speed on basic attack and on kill (Or his Q since it counts as a basic attack) and deals bonus physical damage equal to 200% of base Attack Damage. Maw of Malmortius is a good fallback if you're playing against heavy AP champions or bursty champions like Veigar. With my flow shield up and I have a Maw of Malmortius, I can usually completely negate a Malazahar ult with it or survive a Veigar Q->R burst. If you can avoid the enemy team's CC, you can engage a 1v5 and come out on top every time. If the enemy team is tanky, I'll consider building a Black Cleaver so tear through their armor. Since my Q procs Black Cleaver's Passive, I can very quickly reduce their armor allowing my team to do increased damage as well as providing myself with a bit of health and damage at the same time.

I feel you are better off removing a point from Dangerous game (5% missing health and maan regain on champion kilL) and putting it into devastating strikes (6% armor and magic pen) as it will allow you to do a lot more damage early game (even to minions/monsters) and getting kills as a jungler might not always be favorable (by that I mean it might be better to give it the lane you are ganking the kill so they can win their lane which is something more desirable than you getting fed)

I have a quick question to Refpsi or anyone who is knowledgable, I am starting to focus on mid and AD melee carries. I usually built Youmuus but recently I've noticed many people not bothering anymore or it is core on only one or two champs in your builds (Refpsi). Now should I stop and only get it to snowball the game to an early end? I just in general get confused in terms of which armor pen item to get or early items with melee carries.

Ghost blade is great on whoever as long as you can guarantee that you are able to stick to the opponent and take full advantage of the active.It fits both early and late on Melee carries.

Sitting on brut is not a problem. Most of your late game armor pen if you need it will come from Last Whisper. Taking armor pen marks is very effective if you are comfortable with lower AD in the early stages of the game.

The passive isn't very polished. Doubling critical strike isn't like Riot at all. It adds nothing to gameplay. Draven's Wicked Blades added more to the game than this (it encouraged ax catching). The moving builds a shield may or may not add to gameplay. I'm having trouble gauging whether it makes Yasuo run around in circles like an idiot before he can gank.

Also, if his ultimate keeps the enemy stunned for an entire extra second with no chance of removal or reduction... Yeah major fix issues. On the upper hand, his E is incredibly innovative. And the way his specialty is a knockup and ult lockdown is a very interesting gameplay mechanic.